


What Fortune Brings

by Menzosarres



Series: Glass and Iron [5]
Category: Maleficent (2014)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-20
Updated: 2015-06-01
Packaged: 2018-03-08 07:52:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 11,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3201353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Menzosarres/pseuds/Menzosarres
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompts: [wings] [AU] [body swap] [magical pregnancy] [reincarnation] [as kids] [domesticity]</p>
<p>Summary: After many requests, here are eight moments of Aurora and Maleficent's future in the Glass and Iron universe. </p>
<p>Originally posted on tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Virgin Skies

**Author's Note:**

> Because of Malora Week on tumblr and the seemingly endless requests to do so, I decided to revisit the Glass and Iron universe in seven short follow-up moments loosely based on the week's prompts. Each of the following shorts already exists on tumblr, but since fandom weeks tend to be brutally fast-paced, I plan to upload them here one at a time after a few tweaks and polishes, as well as making some of them potentially longer and adding a final segment to truly close the universe. Expect a new chapter every other day or so.

**Prompt** : Wings

* * *

 

"You know what I'm going to ask for today, don't you?"

Maleficent smiled, pulling Aurora more tightly against her chest. She had felt the young queen wake beside her in their hammock some moments ago, and had been waiting for words ever since. "That isn't how birthday presents are supposed to work, Beastie," she murmured in reply, pressing a kiss to Aurora's temple.

"Oh, I know, and I'm sure whatever you intend to surprise me with will wonderful as well but… don't you think it's time?" Aurora insisted.

Maleficent chuckled. "It's been scarcely a week since I managed to turn you into a hawk and you're already begging for wings of your own."

Aurora turned in Maleficent's feathered embrace and offered her best pleading smile. "It's exhilarating, being a bird, but I want to know what it's like to be a _faerie._ "

"I don't even know if it can be done," Maleficent cautioned.

"You didn't think  _any_  human could change forms a year ago, and look how far I've come!"

Aurora knew from the small smile flitting about the corners of the dark faerie's lips that Maleficent couldn't deny it. Despite her human form, Aurora had been raised far more like the fae, nurtured on nature and the freedom of the wild, never fully embracing the learned resistance of man to change.

"You've seen how well I've taken to your magic; it can't hurt to try!"

"We don't know that, love." Maleficent had begun trailing her fingers through Aurora's hair, hints of magic sparking every now and again and sending shivers down her spine. For a nervous gesture, it was certainly a pleasant one. "As far as I know, this isn't anything that has ever been done. Pixies can hide and summon their wings at will, but I cannot. Partial change… It is not my strong suit."

"You've done it before, though," Aurora insisted.

"That I have."

Neither human nor faerie could hide her smile at the memories of seemingly endless accidents attempting Aurora's transformation. After the initial disaster of feathers taking over her hair, she had borne the indignity of avian attributes many times over. Sometimes, Aurora swore she could would find patches of feathers days, even weeks after leaving the Moors. She had always taken it as progress, though. Each newly feathered limb, no matter how uncomfortable to look at or sleep on, was another step closer to flying. Just when Aurora was growing frustrated at how little progress they seemed to be making, something in her seemed to give way, the world was spinning around her in a flash of glimmering amber dust, and she had finally known what it was to be  _other_.

Maleficent had been quite pleased with herself, grinning down at the little golden hawk, and she had been patient as Aurora learned her wings. After so long watching Maleficent, she was an apt student, so the skies had not eluded her for long. Oh, how wonderful flying had been. There was something so beautiful in taking to the heavens under her own power, no longer dependent on her lover's wings to survey her entire kingdom at a glance. Still, her senses were jumbled as a bird of prey. She could see so much more at any given moment, from the sparkling mist of the waterfalls at the far ends of the faerie cliffs, to the sparkling spires of her glass castle in the human realm, but she could not share it with Maleficent, couldn't touch her in flight. In becoming a bird, she gained wings, but she gave up speech, contact.

 _Call me selfish_ , Aurora mused,  _but I want both._

"Don't tell me you can only do it by accident…" Aurora teased, gently needling the dark faerie's pride.

"Don't test me," Maleficent replied, but her gaze was soft. Letting her fingers wander from Aurora's hair and down the column of her neck, she finally asked, "Are you sure you want to try this now? There's plenty of time to—"

Aurora leaned over and pressed a gentle kiss to the faerie's lips, effectively cutting off her protests. "I'm sure. It is my birthday, after all. I've been on this earth twenty-one years now, and I know exactly what I want out of this morning."

Maleficent smiled at her playfully haughty words. "Do you now?" Sitting up slowly and drawing Aurora with her, she recaptured Aurora's lips with her own, letting a few intoxicating swirls of magic flow between them as she did. Drawing back, the faerie murmured, "Are you sure I couldn't coax you into another way of celebrating?"

Aurora didn't resist Maleficent's next kiss, nor the magic that came with it, whirling into her mind and setting her skin ablaze in moments, but even as the heady power cast its spell, she gently pushed her lover away. "I'm sure you could," she gasped, shaking her head as though any mere physical motion could clear the golden haze from her mind. "I know just how persuasive you are. But not now. Just try, please?"

Maleficent sighed in resignation. "I certainly can't deny my magic is awake, now. Very well. We'll try. No promises, though."

Aurora grinned, delighted. She had always been fairly sure she could get Maleficent to agree, but the faerie was eternally cautious when it came to mixing Aurora and her magic, so it was a triumph all the same. "I'm not asking for any."

Maleficent acknowledge her words with a nod, but now that she'd given in, it was clear her attention had turned to the task at hand. "Let's try this on the ground, at the very least."

In a flurry of wings, Maleficent had deposited them safely next to the stream. Aurora couldn't imagine there would ever be a time when flying in Maleficent's arms didn't thrill her. Having her own was never intended to replace that. It never could.

Maleficent carefully steered Aurora by her shoulders until she faced the stream, her back to the dark faerie. She shivered as she felt one of Maleficent's nails drag from the nape of her neck halfway down her spine, parting the fabric of her nightgown as she went. "I'm going to try something… different," Maleficent murmured distractedly. "More direct."

When each of Maleficent's thumbs came to rest against her shoulder blades, palms fanning out against the skin of her upper back, Aurora understood. She tensed reflexively, a habit she'd carefully broken herself of in the weeks leading up to her first transformation, but Maleficent felt it all the same. "Relax," she whispered, gently squeezing her shoulders and leaning down to press a quick kiss beneath Aurora's ear. "Breathe."

The moment the magic began to rise, Aurora felt the tension flee, melting into Maleficent's sure, steady hands as heat began flowing into her skin. Her eyes fluttered closed. There was a conduit of power between her shoulders, between Maleficent's hands. The skin where her lover's thumbs rested began to throb, a hard, heady pulse of tension and an almost painful ache of something  _missing._

Slowly, Maleficent broke the contact between her hands and Aurora's skin, but even as she drew back, the sun-hewn heat remained, building towards something Aurora could only wait for with baited breath.

There were words in the air; Maleficent was speaking in that deep, visceral tone that always drew shivers down Aurora's spine and struck fear in the hearts of men, but the only word the young queen could make out was "Wings."

Just when Aurora worried the tension would snap something inside of her, it broke, spilling into her chest and down through the pit of her stomach, dissipating into a lingering warmth at the core of her every limb and a promising weight about her shoulders.

Maleficent's gasp finally pried open her eyes.

"It worked," the faerie breathed.

A moment later, Aurora felt the oddest sensation. She would know that touch anywhere, that hand, Maleficent's hand. But  _where_  she felt it… that was entirely foreign. The hand gently stroked along the curve of one virgin limb, and it trembled at her touch. Only then did Aurora truly feel they were a part of her, but once she did, she spread them wide with a cry of joy.

_Wings._

"Oh, Maleficent, you did it!"

Aurora spun around and nearly lost her balance from her drastically altered center of gravity, but Maleficent was there to catch her, holding her close and kissing her roughly, caught up in her giddy delight. That kiss curled her toes and set her feathers standing on end.  _Her feathers._

The thought sent her spiraling away again, scrambling to the edge of the rock on which they stood so she could peer into the eddy at this side of the river.

"Oh, they're so beautiful!" she gasped, staring down at the water-blurred image of tawny down and ashen wing-tips spread to either side of her astonished, grinning face. She wiggled them experimentally, nearly losing her balance in the process.

"Whoa, there," Maleficent laughed, catching hold of her torn nightgown and tugging her back from the edge. "That's quite enough of that."

"If you insist," Aurora giggled, allowing herself to be pulled back in to Maleficent's embrace. "But you're going to have to let go eventually; I want to fly!"

Maleficent smiled indulgently. "Impatient."

Aurora continued to grin. "I can't imagine you waited more than a moment before diving out of the nest."

Maleficent huffed, but it quickly turned into another reluctant laugh. "No, I can't say I did." She stepped back, keeping careful hold of Aurora's hands. "Have it your way. Let's see if you take to these wings as well as you did your smaller ones."

Aurora allowed her wings to fully unfurl, biting her lip in concentration as she did so, feeling them stretch wide and cast two great swathes of shadow across the earth. Then, she bore down with all her strength, halting the motion only when her wing-tips brushed the dirt just as her feet left it.

Though she nearly barreled directly into Maleficent, the faerie was ready, carefully adjusting Aurora's horizontal trajectory with a few lithe motions of her own wings.

Two haphazard pulls later and they were above the trees.

Aurora was flying.

She couldn't stop laughing, the air stealing her cries of joy right from her lips and leaving them behind in the treetop as she rose, clinging to Maleficent's fingertips for dear life even as she arced higher entirely of her own volition. Soon, the motion became more natural, the beat of her wings and the strain in her shoulders as much a part of her as her beating heart. When Maleficent let go, both her heart and her wings stuttered for a moment, but picked up again with greater furor than before, thrusting herself cloudward as though the fire of a thousand suns burned beneath her wingtips.

When Maleficent caught up again, she was above the clouds, carving whirls in the glistening mounds of dew as she stared up towards skies no one had ever touched before. Maleficent caught her before she could dare anything too rash, and Aurora reveled in this, in the power of her wings and in the intimacy of their embrace and in finally, finally having the leverage to kiss the dangerous, beautiful faerie in her arms here, in her domain, above their kingdoms and all the troubles that came with them. These were virgin skies to her new wings, but she would someday know them all.

"Happy birthday to me," she whispered against Maleficent's lips.

"Indeed," came the amused reply, and the Moors bloomed bright below them, patiently awaiting their return to earth.


	2. Battling Fear

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Clearly, this prompt took some stretching.
> 
> Prompt: Alternate Universe

_Aurora hardly recognized her castle these days. Ever since the dragon had decimated the northern quarters and ballrooms, each additional repair added another layer of iron to her endless defenses. Even with the dark faerie dead and the dragon's head mounted on her wall, her subjects would never be satisfied with mere human protection for their queen. She allowed their paranoia to eat away at her until she agreed to hire every new ironcrafter who came before her throne, kneeling to offer a new protection, a new trap, a new wall._

_Never again would she be deceived by the beauty of the faerie Moors. She would not be as easily seduced by so frail an illusion of magic and kindness._

_Perhaps there was a part of her more determined to shield herself from memory than from harm. After all, from what news her scouts brought back from the border, the colonization of the fae was progressing well. She had little to fear from those lands. No, perhaps it was something else that woke her each morning in a cold sweat… the in-erasable memory of waking from her cursed sleep with that woman, that_ creature _leaning over her, rather than Phillip, her betrothed._

_Whatever reason the betrayer had for reversing her spell mattered little, for Maleficent had died easily at the tip of her father's sword, even as he followed her out the dragon-broken window to his death. She had watched it all from the corner of the room, frozen in fear, but some part of her was glad she had never learned to love him. With no ties, she had no need for restraint. No other, either human or fae, could ever be used against her._

" _Good morning, love," Phillip greeted her, emerging from the door at the far end of the iron-hewn chamber. "It's the big day."_

_Aurora nodded, trying to summon a smile. Phillip was her love, she supposed, but this marriage was far more political than personal. His kingdom offered strategic land, trapping the Moors firmly between two human nations. After their ceremony today, construction would begin on an iron wall stretching from kingdom to queendom and back again, replacing the once-impenetrable thorns, now crumpled in brittle, ashen heaps after their creator's death. Plans for the metal masterpiece danced behind her eyes, but before her deadly artistry could become reality, she had a wedding to attend._

_Her own._

_Taking Phillip's arm, she allowed him to escort her back to her chambers, leaving her in the hands of her nameless, capable handmaidens. Their activity flurried about her like a miniature hurricane, bristling with winds of bubbly excitement over her dress and her hair and her husband… Aurora stood unaffected in the eye of the storm._

_None too soon, she stood at the end of the crimson-carpeted path between crowds of her hushed subjects. She should smile, she supposed, but she was queen, and no one could force upon her the illusion of cheer._

_The altar stood before her, then she before it, with Phillip waiting patiently. Words were spoken between them, some in tongues older than the palace, but none as old as the Moors. Aurora shook her head, unsure where the intrusive thought of faerie had come from. Before she could gather herself, Phillip was leaning in for the binding kiss, and she could do nothing but rise to meet him. Something was gathering low and heavy in her stomach, a growing dread that had no place in this moment. Pushing it aside, she leaned further to close the gap, but instead of meeting Phillip's lips, she met the breath of his words._

" _Aurora, wake up."_

" _What?" she murmured, drawing back, staring in shock as brilliant crimson wings suddenly burst from Phillip's shoulders, oozing something slow and dark as blood. The color seemed to bleed into his lips as he moved them to speak again._

" _Aurora, you're dreaming._  Shhh. I'm right here; you're safe."

Aurora's eyes opened slowly, but seeing Maleficent's own crimson lips above her did not help her shake off the painfully realistic nightmare she had become so ensnared in. "I—oh. You… thank you," she finally murmured. A shiver wracked her body a moment later and she whispered, "Hold me?"

Maleficent obeyed the pleading words without hesitation, carefully reversing their position in the hammock and wrapping her fully in the gentle, comforting warmth of her wings. "Tell me?" she prompted, but the words were an invitation rather than a command.

"I—I can't… it was such an odd dream," Aurora stammered, wanting nothing more than to wash the dark stain of it from her mind. "It was… back in my father's castle. After the curse. What could have happened, I suppose, if I hadn't run off and found your wings."

Maleficent's shoulders twitched for a moment, pulling Aurora reflexively closer.

"I—It was like I didn't understand, never knew what my father had done to you. You were dead; Diaval, too… All that rage I felt that day, when I learned what you had done to me… it was poisoning me. I was queen, still, but I was killing the Moors!" she gasped out, feeling her eyes begin to sting with the promise of tears. "I was building iron walls in every direction. I was marrying Phillip, for heaven's sake!"

Maleficent reached up and gently wiped away one angry tear. "Heaven forbid," she murmured, shaking her head at the mention of the prince.

Her dry tone summoned a watery smile, and Aurora looked down. "I'm being silly. It was only a dream."

Maleficent was silent for a moment, but her voice was steady when she spoke again. "I'm not sure that's true. Dreams… are many things, but rarely are they frivolous." Lifting her hand from Aurora's cheek, she allowed it to trace the curve of a shoulder and feather over the top of Aurora's folded wings, carefully nestled between her own. "You're not ready to give these up. You don't want to go back."

A despairing sound tore its way from Aurora's chest. "Of course I don't want to go back! I never do." Whenever it came near time for her to make the return journey to her other throne, the days seemed to hunt her through the Moors, chasing her away. Maleficent was right, though. It was worse this time. Ever since Maleficent's initial success in crafting her wings, she hadn't been without them. This past month in the faerie realm, they had become so much a part of her she could hardly remember what it was to be earthbound. For the first time since Maleficent had set the golden crown upon her head, she truly felt part of the forest, part of the marshlands, part of the fae. Still, she knew her human subjects were not ready to be ruled by a queen with wings. Their accord with the Moors was tentative, tenuous, and fragile, easily shattered by any hint Aurora might have chosen a closer allegiance with the faerie kingdom rather than that of her birthright. Today, her wings must go, and so must she.

"I know," Maleficent murmured, allowing her fingers to trace soothing paths through her feathers. "Believe me, I know what it is to give up the skies. You'll be home again before you know it, though, and they'll be waiting. As will I."

Aurora nodded, feeling a sharp stab of empathy as she imagined having her wings stolen with no hope of ever getting them back. She couldn't imagine the agony Maleficent had gone through. "I know," she whispered. "But it's more than that. I—I hate who I am there. I hate that I don't—that I can't love them the same way I love the Moors." Her voice faded like a dying breeze as the last words slipped past her lips, and she knew they were not completely true.

Maleficent smiled sadly. "Ah, there it is."

"What?" Aurora asked at Maleficent's knowing tone.

"The rest of the dream. You haven't seen all you've done. Part of you still worries that the race of men has the power to damage you far more than your capacity to heal." She pressed a gentle kiss to Aurora's forehead. "You could never be what you saw in that dream," she insisted. "You have brought so much light to your kingdom. Your people adore you, and I don't think you can help but return their devotion. This is not about your inability to love them. You're afraid you care too much."

"But I—"

"It doesn't need to be the same. Your allegiance to them does not need to take away from your love for the Moors." Her lips moved closer, kissing the young queen for a lingering moment before drawing back again. "I love you, beastie, but it was never my love for a human which made me a monster."

Aurora's heart was beating quickly, pulsing Maleficent's words through her blood. "How is it, even now, you know the things I don't say?"

Maleficent's answering smile was bittersweet. "I have known what it is to rule. I have also known what it is to worry you care for something that might change who you are. That is the danger of love."

Aurora smiled, then, but her voice was still fragile. "I see myself in them." Her expression darkened. "Sometimes it is anything but pleasant. I see my anger. My fear. Then I see how easily it turns to the unknown, to the Moors, and—"

"—and you dream of how easily you might have been made to fear and despise these realms with the rest of them," Maleficent finished for her. Again, her fingers caressed the length of Aurora's wings. "These were more than a birthday present, weren't they?"

Aurora laughed at Maleficent's leading question, but it was not a happy sound. "No. I needed… I always come back here and feel as though I don't belong. Months of signing decrees and forging alliances and being followed by swords and spears and axes everywhere I turn leaves me so… heavy. I'm always afraid I'll come home to you and… I won't be able to find the easy joy of this place again. I was terrified I would lose my chance to be anything more than another unchanging human, forever trapped in history. These wings are the proof that I haven't lost my place in your world."

" _Our_  world," Maleficent insisted. "Ours."

Without another word, she carefully slid both of her palms along Aurora's sides until they came to rest where the smooth skin first turned to feathers. A single searing pulse of power arced from her hands and burned through Aurora's chest, and when the heat had passed, Aurora knew her wings were gone.

She  _knew_ , and yet…

"I can still _feel_  them," she whispered, reaching back to slide her hand over as much of the unmarked flesh as she could reach.

Maleficent nodded. "I thought you might."

"Why?"

The dark faerie kissed her then, allowing the lingering magic in Aurora's skin to play between them. "They are a part of you now," she said against her lips. "Even when they are hidden. You could not renounce this world if you tried, Beastie."

Another tear slipped down Aurora's cheek, but it was not one of anger or fear.

"You belong to the Moors, and she does not give up her own."

There was something there, something more than simple reassurance, but in that moment, Aurora didn't care about cryptic word games. "Thank you," she said. "You never make me feel like a child, even when I'm not that much of a queen."

Maleficent kissed her one last time as the sun finally ushered morning to their perch in the treetops. "You are the greatest queen these lands have ever known."

In that moment, with the Moors spread out below her, liquid sunlight singing through her veins, and Maleficent's wings holding her close, Aurora almost felt the words could be true.


	3. Of the Moors

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Another stretched prompt… "species swap" might be more apt. 
> 
> Prompt: Body Swap

"There's talk of an uprising. I've stayed too long." Even as Aurora continued to pick away at her handful of berries, her mind was no longer on the lunch shared with Maleficent out past the last waterfall. It was the farthest she had ever flown over this part of the kingdom, out where the marshes turned into a true sea, the rocky outcroppings of land spread thin amid the waves. "There's always someone left who decides to forge an iron sword and wave it about on an upended apple crate, calling out to anyone who'll listen that there are riches in the Moors and I'm the one keeping them locked away."

Maleficent was lying on her stomach, eyes closed, wings spread over half of the land around them to dry. They had spent more minutes in the clouds than had been strictly wise, but rain had been scarce of late, and sometimes a touch of Maleficent's power could coax the weather to play nice. At Aurora's words, she smiled. "You can't say they don't have a point."

Aurora shrugged. "Yes. There are enough jewels in the marshes and gold in the earth here to make every one of my subjects into a king, but what use has a village for five hundred kings?"

Maleficent's wings shook in a silent laugh. "And that is precisely why you are queen in their stead."

"I know it is naïve, but I'm still startled whenever another self-proclaimed rebel raises enough men against me for there to be whispers of it in the streets. Since I took the crown, not one man, woman, or child has died of starvation. No one goes cold in the winter. No one falls in battle. I live on far less than I have given to every one of them, yet there was never one rebellion against my father. Fear… it is not a pretty tool, but it saves time."

As she spoke, the young queen threw pebbles one by one into the sea, mind more on the little helpless sound as the waters swallowed them up than on her own words.

"Believe me, beastie, I won't argue that."

Glancing over at her darkly beautiful lover, Aurora couldn't help but smile. "This is why I like you," she murmured. "You let me talk as though I could ever match your wrath, even if I know I'm hardly the sort to inspire fear."

Maleficent sat up and moved closer to the younger woman, bringing them hip-to-hip on the salt-strewn rocks. "I don't doubt you could rule with fear if you so choose, but I know you never would."

Tucking her head into the crook of the faerie's neck, Aurora listened to the rush of blood in one ear and the heartbeat of the sea in the other. "No. Besides, should I ever need fear, there is always your name. The memory of you still holds a strange power over my lands."

"Glad to hear my reputation is untarnished."

"Always."

That evening, Aurora knew she was preparing for another goodbye, one that could last anywhere from a few months to a year, possibly even longer. Nearly a full year in the Moors was far longer than she had ever been able to stay before, and she had never felt closer to her faerie kingdom than she had these past few days. Leaving was going to be painful. As she waited in the hammock for Maleficent to return from the stream, she slipped her tunic over her head, flexing her wings one more time before she gave them up. Maleficent joined her, smiling in amusement at her naked torso. It wasn't often the younger woman undressed without prompting, despite knowing that human standards of modesty were in no way a part of faerie culture. "Just… saying goodbye to my wings again," Aurora explained, turning her back to Maleficent's gaze and offering up her feathers to the dark faerie's magic.

Maleficent gasped sharply.

Aurora's head snapped towards her. "What is it?"

"Aurora," she whispered, reaching out towards Aurora's back with visibly trembling fingers. "Look."

By arching her wings and craning her neck at an entirely unforgiving angle, Aurora could catch a glimpse of the part of her back over which Maleficent's fingers hovered, and the sight drew a gasp from her as well. "Is that… magic?" she breathed in awe.

There was something there, nestled into the flesh over her spine. It was faintly gold and dimly glowing, a perfect arch the length of her littlest finger overlaid across one vertebra of her spine, the only one she could see. It was not as bright as the glowing curves nestled beneath Maleficent's wings, but the resemblance was uncanny all the same, and in all the time Aurora had spent in the Moors, that particular hew of shimmering amber had never meant anything other than magic _._

"It is," Maleficent replied. She gently placed one finger just beneath it, and Aurora shivered at the touch.

Maleficent had touched her many times, in many ways, some more intimate than others, but this… this was something else entirely. Her skin seemed to pull towards the contact, wanting to seek out and claim the flash of warmth there.

"It keeps going," the faerie whispered, slowly dragging the tip of here finger up from where it rested, slipping just to the side of her spine and all the way up to the top of a wing. "Nine," she murmured.

"N-nine?" Aurora gasped out, her body humming with an aimless energy triggered by Maleficent's touch. "Nine what?"

"Nine power lines," Maleficent answered, a second finger joining the first to slowly walk their way down alongside the vertebrae of her spine in nine deliberate taps.

Aurora wanted to ask what it meant, wanted to see, wanted to know, but she could hardly keep her eyes open. She could feel a growing heat in the pit of her stomach, rioting up through her back and sparking along her spine at Maleficent's every touch. When one finger strayed too close, grazing the edge of one golden arch, Aurora gasped aloud, her eyes falling shut even as her back pressed closer to that wandering hand. She could see fire on the back of her eyelids, a fierce golden glow that pulsed against her mind. In that moment, she could feel the world around her fall into sharp focus, the air tingling with spice and nectar and the promising kiss of future rain.

When Maleficent drew back, Aurora whimpered at the loss. "Don't stop!" she gasped, an immediate longing settling around her as her eyes opened again.

"I—we don't know what this is, Beastie," she stammered.

"It's what we always wanted, though!" Aurora insisted, turning to capture Maleficent's skittish gaze with her own. "You… It must have worked! I—"

"—you are becoming fae," Maleficent whispered, as though she scarcely dared believe her own words.

"I'm becoming fae," Aurora echoed. For a moment, implications whirled in her mind, images of eternal youth and faerie children and becoming another charmed legend in the human realms, but thoughts of the future could only hold her attention for so long when the present offered one particularly enticing distraction. Before any further words could slip from Maleficent's dangerous lips, Aurora stole the breath from them with her own, tackling the dark faerie backwards and claiming her lips in a searing kiss.

The hammock rocked ominously, but even the great rowan tree seemed to know that dumping the mistress of the forest out onto the ground below would not be a wise choice.

Instead, Aurora's dive drew Maleficent's hands to her shoulders where they scrabbled ineffectively for only a heartbeat before giving in and sliding down her sides, finding a familiar perch just at the start of her hips. Aurora took advantage of their occupation to slip her own hands beneath the fabric of Maleficent's dress, easily finding the gaps that left her wings room to maneuver. It only took a moment for the power that hid there to respond to her touch, quickly claiming the tips of Aurora's fingers with a fine web of light.

Maleficent growled, low and deep in her throat, breaking away from their kiss to rasp, "Playing with fire again, Beastie."

Aurora's innocent smile fooled neither of them, so she decided to kiss away Maleficent's reservations instead.

It worked.

In a flurry of feathers and air, Maleficent had Aurora beneath her, pressed face-first into the soft mesh of the hammock, hands grasping shoulders, legs pinning legs, wings pinning wings, breath dancing against the back of Aurora's neck. "This is what you want?" she breathed, allowing her nails to drag lightly from Aurora's shoulders in towards the base of her skull. "You want to know what it is truly like for the fae?" At Aurora's quiet whimper and desperate nod, Maleficent's voice broke. "Very well. I'll show you."

With no further warning, Maleficent's hands met above her spine, and Aurora's newly burgeoning magic rose to meet them. A ripple of electric heat raced along her skin, spreading out from her spine to spill along her shoulders, her neck, her sides… each place Maleficent's fingers quested. Even now that the power in question belonged to her, Maleficent seemed to wield Aurora's magic with as sure a touch as she had always commanded her own. There was starlight in her skin now, rich and old and impossible for Aurora to fully imagine and yet Maleficent painted it with ease.

Aurora knew the moment Maleficent added her own sparks to the fray. They seared into her skin and set her wings trembling, a darker, heavier power echoing through her veins in a trickle of pure sunlight that quickly became a flood. No matter how many times Aurora had had that heat inside of her, it never ceased to chase every thought from her mind and now… now it was  _more_.

Maleficent was laughing, cool and clear as spring-fed water rushing down the face of the southern cliffs. The sound of it spilled over Aurora's skin and fought to claim some part of her not already awash in sun-hewn fire. When Maleficent pressed closer, the cloth of her dress falling away in green vines of renewed life, Aurora melted into the heat of Maleficent's skin against her back, eyes slamming closed as she was pulled up in the faerie's arms, her head collapsing against one pale shoulder. The moment darkness claimed her vision, the Moors seemed to fill her senses. Even as Maleficent's molten-amber palms slipped around her wings to cup her breasts, something more was calling her, and she couldn't help but answer. The air bristled with pine and stone and moonlight. The wind carried the piercing cry of a nightwing pixie and the slow, yearning groan of an ancient boulder finally being claimed by the sea. She could taste the allure of the forest on her tongue: simmering mist and wild berries.

Her wings rasped against Maleficent's like crushed leaves.

The human in her was drowning in liquid pleasure, straining towards lips and skin and light and heat in a helplessly wanton display. Maleficent's light had coaxed her own pale fire to devour them both, every inch of skin between them glowing with power.

Yet the part of her that was  _other_  was drowning in the wild, the silken edge of night playing in her blood, in her veins. The strength in that part of her spun her around, magic sparking on magic like the strike of a match as she turned in Maleficent's arms to see the sun-hewn being who held her. She pulled their lips together, wildflowers and brambles exploding in her mouth even as her mortal flesh could no longer hold all of the pleasure brimming inside of her. She drew back only when she could no longer feel where she ended, where Maleficent started, and where the Moors began. The forest enveloped her in emerald silk and will-o'-wisp light and she cried out her release, staring in awe as thousands of stars filled Maleficent's eyes.

Even as the power stole away her wings, even knowing she would sit upon her human throne by morning, Aurora knew she had finally tasted the true joy of faerie this night, and the Moors had claimed her, indeed.


	4. Keep Safe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: The sheer number of you who asked for this one…
> 
> Prompt: Magical Pregnancy

"I don't like this," Maleficent muttered, pacing back and forth across the clearing. The previous occupants has long since fled, the poor flower fae having no interest in the dark shadows following their protector across the Moors.

Aurora was only a few paces away, having taken an exasperated seat on a log when it became clear Maleficent's ire was not quick to wane. "You don't have to like it. I need to go back."

"Not now!" Maleficent snapped. "Not like this!"

Aurora couldn't keep from smiling. It was in no way helping the dark faerie's temper. "You must admit it is a bit ironic that it has taken nearly two decades for you to finally not be the one telling me I can't linger here."

"This is different!" she insisted, wings flexing in exasperation. "It isn't safe."

Aurora shook her head. "It never has been."

"Yes, well…" Maleficent's words disintegrated into a snarl, and Aurora could see the grass at her feet curling away from her volatile mood.

"Hush," she finally murmured, rising slowly and taking hold of her lover's hands to stop her restless feet. "You're upsetting the whole forest."

A long, heavy breath hissed from Maleficent's lungs, taking the worst of the tension with it. When she finally met Aurora's eyes, the queen could see that what remained was fear.

"I'm going to be fine, love. The news has been received very well. There hasn't been any real animosity towards the Moors in five years now. They want to see that I am safe as much as you do."

"No one wants to see you safe as I do."

Aurora chuckled. "Very well.  _Almost_  as much as you."

Maleficent offered a weak smile. "Better."

Aurora could see the fight had gone out of her, even if the fear lingered. "I can't believe this actually worked, even now," she murmured, drawing Maleficent's hands to her swollen stomach.

"Nor can I," the dark faerie whispered, gently turning Aurora in her arms so she could embrace her from behind. Two pairs of hands rested against the bump in Aurora's robes.

"Do the trick," Aurora whispered, stroking the backs of Maleficent's fingers with her own.

Aurora could practically feel the smile taking over Maleficent's face. "Alright."

Lifting her hands just above the surface of Aurora's shirt, Maleficent allowed golden sparks of light to dance between her fingers, not allowing them to sink into Aurora's skin, but only to play in the air in a miniature landscape of amber stars. As the sensation of magic softly tickled Aurora's stomach, the life inside of her woke, turning restlessly and beginning to kick. Maleficent allowed the magic to die as she pressed her palms once more against Aurora's stomach, feeling the tiny movements of their child as she greeted Maleficent's presence with unknowing joy. Aurora laughed, turning in Maleficent's embrace to gently kiss the other mother of their daughter. "Only two more months," she murmured.

A hint of fear immediately returned in Maleficent's eyes. "I want you here."

Aurora offered her an understanding smile, reaching up to run her fingers through the hair to either side of her lover's horns. "I know."

They had exchanged these words over the past months more times than Aurora could count, and the end result was inevitable. She had to return to the human kingdom, not just for the benefit of her subjects there, but for the child itself. If she allowed the child to be born in the Moors, to come into being surrounded by the lifeblood of the faerie kingdom, her daughter would not be able to choose her own future. Some part of Aurora wanted that, wanted to give her child all the pure, innocent joy of a faerie life, but part of her valued her freedom to come and go as she chose. If this new life formed the fae bond to the land, depended on the Moors for her life, she would never have the chance to rise to Aurora's throne. She would burn at the touch of iron. She would not be able to craft her own future. As strongly as Aurora felt about not grooming her child to rule, neither she nor Maleficent believed it fair to deny her that right of birth, should she so desire it. The power of the human throne was not something to be taken lightly, and Aurora had long since learned it could not be ignored in favor of the faerie realms.

And so, here they stood, Aurora's wings hidden once more, at the edge of the Moors. These were not truly words of persuasion. They were fears of goodbye.

"I could still come with you," Maleficent implored.

"No," Aurora denied her once again. "Soon; not yet."

They had already agreed: Maleficent would come for the final weeks, stay for the birth of her child, but not until then. It would not do for her to weaken for months in the realms of iron, nor could the Moors flourish without the protector in their midst. Her bond to the land was too strong for even this.

"I know," Maleficent rasped, beginning to tremble as she pulled Aurora close once again, clinging to her. "I know."

"The carriage is waiting," Aurora murmured, but she could not bring herself to move away.

"I know."

The stood together for a long moment, breathing in the life of the forest all around them, new life between them still kicking gently, pulling their attention towards the future. Finally, Maleficent let her go. "Be safe."

Aurora nodded, gently grasping Maleficent's forearm. "Be kind to the Moors."

Staring around the darkened clearing, Maleficent nodded resolutely, trying to summon a smile. She knew the affects her weightier moods could have on the lands under her guard. Aurora leaned in and pressed a long, slow kiss to the faerie's lips, allowing the magic she was gradually learning to control to slip between them, painting those normally crimson lips a glowing rose-gold. As Maleficent responded, the skies above them began to clear, hidden flowers daring to turn their petals towards the sun again.

"When you are worried, remember that I will be waiting for you in two months, and I expect you to bring me only words of how beautiful the Moors are in midsummer."

Maleficent nodded, and though a single glimmering tear glistened like dew against one pale cheek, the clearing continued to bloom in the sunlight even once Aurora's footsteps had passed beyond the last line of trees.


	5. Old Lore

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Almost the end…
> 
> Prompt: Reincarnation

"Do the fae believe in… second lives? In reincarnation?"

"No."

Aurora sighed in mild disappointment, watching their daughter scurrying around in the rain-dampened soil beneath the great oak, collecting worms and pill bugs unearthed by the last storm.

"Why?" Maleficent asked, offering Aurora a curious look.

"I just… she reminds me of Diaval sometimes. I know he must have died right around her birth and… Just a silly thought."

Maleficent smiled. "A nice one all the same. Then again, I couldn't say what ravens do or don't believe in. Diaval was never a faerie."

Aurora's answering smile was steeped in nostalgia. "True. After so many times seeing him as a man, I'd forgotten he wasn't always a creature of magic. I don't see why not, then. Maybe ravens—Ava!"

At her mother's sharp warning, Princess Ava reluctantly dropped the pixie she had caught napping in the leaves. The poor little faerie was clearly less than pleased at the toddler's rough handling, darting off in a puff of glittering magic, leaving the girl laughing in delight as she tried to catch the sparks left behind. Aurora smiled, amused at the thought of just how the girl's human caretakers would react to seeing their precious princess clambering around in the wild. Aurora could never understand the aversion of man to the natural world; she had been raised in the borderlands of the Moors, raised as a faerie child might have been, and she could not picture a childhood that didn't center around jumping in piles of leaves, building little bug forts from pebbles and stones, and being far muddier than the royal human court would ever allow.

Maleficent had watched the moment in detached amusement. "The idea is growing on me," she mused.

"Hmm?" Aurora asked, the train of conversation lost in the back of her mind.

"Reincarnation. We did name her 'bird' in the old tongue, after all."

Aurora chuckled. "That we did." When Ava clambered over to them, curling up for a nap against Aurora's side and in the shadow of Maleficent's wing, her thoughts returned to their earlier words. "What  _do_  faeries believe in, then, if not reincarnation? I know you have never taken part in the religions of men."

"We don't need to," Maleficent began, pitching her voice low so as not to wake their sleeping child. "We're immortal, or close to. We don't age, we don't fade… We have little to fear from the passage of time, so that is not how we measure death. If we are killed, we return to the land. We become part of this… part of the magic."

As she spoke, sparks began dancing about her fingertips, coaxing fresh grass to spring up where Ava's muddy play had crushed the fragile blades. Aurora watched the light do its work, nurturing back to full strength the havoc her daughter's play had wrought. She could feel it now – stronger every day – the pull of the Moors. Maleficent's magic was changing her, drawing the faerie realms into her blood until the wild echoed in her veins like a second heartbeat. It was a seductive thought, the idea of never leaving the Moors. Feeling the arches of amber power along her spine tingle with the presence of her lover's magic, Aurora decided joining the power was a lovely notion indeed.

"Might I be part of it someday," she mused aloud, not so much a question as words with which to weigh her future. "Even if I'm not truly fae?"

"Oh yes, Beastie. You already are."

Maleficent's fingers carefully slid beneath the protective paneling on the back of Aurora's dress to hover over the power lines there, gently tugging at Aurora's awareness even without direct contact. When one dangerously questing fingertip dared to stroke the skin far too close to fire, Aurora shook her head, chuckling.

"You know Thistlewit isn't free to watch Ava until tomorrow morning," she murmured. "Don't tempt me now."

Reluctantly, Maleficent withdrew, taking hold of her hand instead and feeding her stray power directly though her palm in a delicious trickle of sunlight.

Aurora sighed, wondering if that delightful lethargy and heat would ever grow old. Knowing the end of her time in these woods might be as part of that golden light, part of the heartblood of the forest, Aurora wondered how any human lore could compare. She belonged to the Moors as surely as the air she was breathing, and if this land wanted to keep her in the end, she wouldn't mind at all.


	6. Flirting With Danger

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: The description of the Moors in this piece was inspired by a photoset on tumblr, which can be found here: http://goo.gl/AHN0PD
> 
> Prompt: As Kids

"I'm amazed she hasn't decided she's too old for the swing," Aurora mused, watching Ava kick her feet in the air as the woven vines dangled her over the edge of the cliff for one chilling heartbeat before tugging her back safely towards the earth.

"She might keep at it for years to come if she knows it will always terrify you."

The first time Ava had braved the jump from the highest point of the swing's arc, diving into the lagoon below with a cry of exhilarated fright, it had taken all of Aurora's self-restraint not to wake the vines on the side of the drop to catch her mid-fall. Now, at sixteen, Ava was as in touch with the Moors as either of her mothers, so Aurora trusted her to flirt with adrenaline and still skirt disaster.

"I'm trying to imagine you at that age," the queen mused, staring up into the ageless face of her faerie partner.

Maleficent's gaze grew distant in a heartbeat, falling backwards through time and memory. "Oh… that was a different era indeed."

"Tell me?" Aurora asked, leaning over to rest her head in the faerie's lap. Even after all these years, she never tired of those fine-boned fingers playing through her hair as that low, level voice whispered tales of their kingdoms in her ear.

"I was a wild thing at her age," Maleficent mused. "The closest I had been to humanity was a sunken ship in the southern sea, and I had never seen the Moors cloaked in darkness. I was just coming to realize the extent of my power, the unusual connection I had with these lands…" For a moment, Maleficent's voice lost its weight, but she quickly resumed with equal furor. "Yes, I couldn't have been older than Ava when I pledged my service to the Moors."

"Pledged?" Aurora mused. "You've always spoken of your connection as… a duty, I suppose, but pledged? To whom?"

Maleficent stared off into the distance. "To  _her_ ," she whispered.

Aurora straightened, leaning closer. "Her?"

"She is the Moors." Maleficent spoke as though those four words could answer Aurora's question.

"The Moors… are a person?"

"Hardly," Maleficent muttered. "The Moors are… infinitely more than either you or I can comprehend, but… I have spoken to her. The soul of the forest in faerie form. Twice. The first when I was still a girl, the second… not long after you were born. She granted me leave to raise my wall of thorns. I have not seen her since."

"What was she like?" Aurora murmured, surprised at this kingdom's continued ability to inspire awe in her, no matter how many years she had ruled it. In moments like this, Aurora realized just how little power she truly had over this realm. She had never needed it. "Have others met her? Did you seek her out?"

Maleficent chuckled, Aurora's incessant questioning finally drawing her back into the present. "Still ever a curious Beastie. One question at a time. No, I did not seek her. She came to me, as she has to each protector she has chosen. When the very earth that sustains you asks for your service, your strength, your wings… you do not turn her down."

"You said you were only Ava's age, though: still just a child!"

"Indeed. But in wartime, faerie lives are not so long as they might otherwise be, and that of the protector tends to be shorter still. Once my predecessor had passed away, a new bond had to be forged. She is a being far older than any fae, older than time, some say. She does not wait on mortal years. Besides, I was ready."

Aurora did not interrupt again.

"It was a day no different than this… clear skies, midsummer heat… I will never forget that morning. I had flown to the border in the hopes that I might see your fa—well… She came instead. You asked what she was like…" Maleficent shivered. "She was a figure of light. Her skirts were the roots of some great golden tree, growing into the form of a woman who put the design of humanity to shame. Her eyes were so full of power that I could see no color in them, yet I knew they saw me far more than I would ever see myself. A forest grew from her head, pale, shimmering branches clawing their way towards the heavens… disappearing into the sunlight above her. She drew me towards her without words, without motion, yet the forest around her seemed to pull away, leaving her an unobstructed path between land and sky. Even rooted in the earth, her very being was sculpted of sunlight, and even as the sight of her burned my eyes, I could not turn away.

"When she spoke, her voice was fire, and the trees were bathed in it, sprouting violet spritestools even as the bark of their trunks were stained with a darkness I had never before seen. The closer I drew, the more certain I became that I was walking towards the end of my life, but when she spoke my name, I no longer felt fear. I knelt before her, breathing flame into my lungs with every draw of air, and drawing her unspoken words into my very being as they echoed in my mind. Yes, I would serve her. Yes, I would heal the forest. Yes, I would stand against the tide of man, I would brave the touch of iron, I would give every bit of strength and power in her name. I would serve the Moors.

"She moved only once, one limb of light tilting up my head, lifting my gaze to hers, and even as I was blinded by her eyes and the power flooding into me from her touch, I swear, the faint shadow of her previously unmoving lips mouthed, 'I am sorry.'

"I did not understand it then. Since, there have been times I did not believe I would survive the weight of carrying a piece of her being inside of me, times when I did not think I would ever forgive her for the darkness that my life became, but… I have. I forgave her the day I brought down the wall, and I do not think I will see her again until the day I die."

Aurora did not speak until well after the image painted by Maleficent's words had faded from behind her eyes. "Thank you," she breathed. "I forget sometimes that there are pieces of your past in which I played no part. Taking on so much so young—"

"—I think you forget your own childhood, Beastie. At the age when I began protecting your future kingdom, you were cursed, woken, and saved my life. Childhood… is a state of joy, not of innocence, not of age. I served the Moors for many years whilst still a child. You have worn childhood in this realm and shook it off to rule the human kingdom many times over. Compared to the Moors, we will always be but fragile pieces of youth."

Watching Ava clamber up the face of the cliff, amber sparks dancing about her fingertips to draw helping handholds of vine towards her questing grasp, Aurora was struck by Maleficent's words.  _Fragile pieces of youth._  She shivered, the sun no longer quite so warm. It had been many years since she had dwelled on the darker side of these woods and rivers, but it would not do to forget the temper of the Moors. In times of war, these trees had feasted upon the blood of humanity. The sea had eaten iron armor and the men who donned it with equal ease. Part of her had always known the Moors were alive, but to imagine a will behind them, a purpose… It had been quite some time since she had felt so small. Ava seemed smaller still, clinging to rocks that could dump her into the sea just as easily as they could continue to bear her weight.

"Do you think I will ever meet her?" Aurora whispered, tucking herself more closely against Maleficent's side. "You have said many times that I belong to the Moors. Does that mean…?"

Maleficent wrapped her tight in her arms and wings, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. "Perhaps someday you will, but she is not to be feared, Aurora. She is neither good, nor evil… She is a being of nature itself. She has given us this life, and some day we will more than likely return it to her, so yes, you belong to her. We are as children, no more or less than any other creature of her world. Revel in it. It is her gift."


	7. A New Dawn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Last day of the week here! One final chapter will complete this particular adventure, for real this time, but it may be a few extra days before it is posted.
> 
> Prompt: Domesticity

"This will have to be my last trip, won't it?" Aurora whispered when Maleficent joined her in the hammock. She shivered, accepting the bowl of nearly-human soup the faerie had cautiously flown up to her. "The sickness is getting worse."

Tucking the blankets more closely up to Aurora's chin, Maleficent nodded. "As much as you know I enjoy taking care of you, iron poisoning is nothing to take chances with."

"I suppose I never thought it would come this far," she murmured. "I thought I might have the best of my faerie and human lives for all of my days."

Maleficent settled at the far end of the woven sling, lifting Aurora's feet into her lap. She offered a gentle massage even as she nursed her magic into Aurora's blood, healing and tending all in one. "You have not aged a day in years. I haven't been able to reclaim your wings for months. You are faerie, Aurora, and you must accept the consequences as well."

Her trips to the human throne grew shorter and shorter each year, yet her recovery in the Moors had been taking more and more time. No longer did Aurora return heartsick and power-weary, but physically ill instead. When Maleficent had finally realized that Aurora had become allergic to iron, the queen had been able to promote its limited use in the city with monetary compensation, but for many, iron tools were a staple of survival, and she could not ban them forever without destroying the trust she had so painstakingly built between man and fae.

The Moors churned in her blood every day she was beyond their borders, calling to her, sapping her strength. "I have to step down," she whispered. "Too much of me is faerie."

"How's Ma doing?"

In a flutter of feathers, Ava came to perch beside Maleficent on the widest branch of their great tree. Maleficent had crafted the wings for her on her eighteenth birthday and no amount of political persuasion had been able to talk her into giving them up again, so Aurora had a series of tumultuous months as her human subjects adjusted to a crown princess who could fly. Now, many years later, a winged queen was hardly the strangest thing the Moor's Edge humans had seen.

"Better," Maleficent replied, continuing to chase the sickness from Aurora's blood with her power.

Aurora was thrilled to see Ava again. Instead of accompanying her to their kingdom in the past months, an insatiable wanderlust seemed to have taken hold of her daughter's wings. "You're home!" Aurora murmured, grasping and squeezing her hand as Ava slid closer along the branch. "How far did you go this time?"

Ava's eyes lost focus, drifting back to distant lands in her mind. In that moment, despite their daughter's golden hair and human physique, Aurora saw nothing but Maleficent in her. There was a fire that burned in her daughter's soul, a piece of her that thirsted for new knowledge and power, and in moments of memory, it glowed in her eyes just like her mother's magic. "Farther than ever before," she began. "I discovered an entire desert kingdom across the wastes… they live in constantly shifting settlements of cloth houses that can uproot themselves and move in a single night, and they worship the sand fae as gods. Across the desert lies a kingdom of marble… a city far larger than any I have ever seen before carved entirely from the stone heart of a mountain, yet there are no men there. The streets have been reclaimed by the forest. A marble city of foxes and rabbits and deer, can you imagine?"

Ava's ability to craft worlds with her voice was of arguable inheritance. Aurora swore it was Maleficent's rare and silvered tongue which had gifted their daughter her way with words, but Maleficent insisted Aurora's bedtime stories – especially about how the two had met – had played an equal part in crafting her wordsmithery.

"Then… nothing but ocean. I tried to fly across it on three separate days, but there is nowhere to land. No ships have sailed beyond its reach. I cannot believe it is the end of the world, but I am content that it is far enough."

"Far enough?" Aurora asked.

"I've seen enough of the world to know I'm ready."

"Ready?" Maleficent echoed, but there was a knowing current running beneath the question.

"To rule one small piece of it."

Aurora let out a squeak of happy shock, sitting up despite her exhaustion and pulling her now-grown child into her arms. Ava had always known there was a throne should she wish to claim it, but she had never expressed any real desire to do so. She had learned all her mother knew of ruling from her time at her side, then she had begun to disappear into the world, seeking lands far beyond the reaches of their knowledge, trading networks, or maps. "Why now?" Aurora asked, pulling away.

"I had to know… I had to see how others rule. I believed you were a good queen, but you are also my mother. I had to be sure that I wasn't wrong. I've seen worse. I've seen… different. I have seen kingdoms who have no connection to magic, no knowledge of any mind greater than or equal to that of man. There are streets where men preach the philosophy of power to a crowd of starving peasants as though they had any say in granting their lord his authority. I have never seen an easy peace, but I have seen peace, and I know you created it here. This… this is good. You've done well, Ma. I'm ready to try for better."

Aurora met Maleficent's eyes with a smile. Her charmed joy was matched on her dark faerie's lips. They had undoubtedly raised a queen, and hers was a new dawn.


	8. To End an Age

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I missed the Maleficent anniversary by virtue of… being in the woods… but I realized that, as of today, it has been exactly 365 days since I posted the first installment of my Glass and Iron series on tumblr, and I decided that finally bringing it to a close one year later was just right.

“Sabrina is asking for a bedtime story,” Tris said with a smile, joining Maleficent and Aurora in the shade of the undying rowan.

Aurora laughed. “Of course she is.” As any mother of a toddler was want to be, Tris looked exhausted with happiness, and even after so many centuries since her own time raising Ava, Aurora understood.

Tris was a granddaughter of the Moors many, many times over, but after one or two “greats” were added, it became far too much of a hassle, and it made Aurora feel old. Now, all of their descendants were “granddaughter” until they grew older than she and Maleficent appeared, then “daughter” until they passed.

None since Ava had spent enough time in the Moors to earn her wings. The draw of the growing world had proven too great, and so Aurora had grown used to goodbyes.

“I’ll tell one, this time,” Maleficent murmured, pressing a quick kiss to Aurora’s forehead. She moved away through the deepening twilight towards the low-hanging nest in which Sabrina was falling asleep.

Aurora could hear Sabrina’s delighted laughter drift back through the trees as she cried, _“Avia!”_

Though Aurora had never minded being “grandmother” to the many children who had passed through the Moors, Maleficent had always preferred the old tongue, and being “ _Avia_ ” saved the confusion of having one too many “grandmas” too make sense of. As Maleficent’s soothing voice calmed Sabrina’s enthusiastic greeting, she and Tris shared a smile.

“Tell me of the world,” Aurora said, beckoning Tris to sit beside her on a fallen tree. “I can still hardly wrap my mind around the ‘cellular devices’ your grandmother showed me, but I’d love to hear what life is like out there.”

Tris chuckled. “We’re way past cell phones these days, and I think we’re finally past any danger to the Moors, too.”

“Is that so? Are we still a… 'nature preserve?’” Aurora asked. She found the thought that the land beyond their borders believed they had done anything to preserve her world rather comical, but as towering cities of glass and steel had replaced the realms of iron, their little haven of breathing forest had become an object of some political importance. There had been centuries when the world had forgotten them completely, losing belief in magic and the fae, and then there had been centuries of war, centuries of fear and fire and an endless destruction of the natural world. Then, as Ava’s children and her children’s children continued making the pilgrimage to visit the fabled Moors, there had come a time of regrowth and rediscovery. Any number of strange papers were signed, and Aurora had laughed at seeing herself described as an “endangered species,” but Maleficent believed their interaction with the larger human world might pull it back from the brink of self-destruction.

Finally, there had been centuries of uneasy peace.

“You might say that,” Tris answered. “Actually, it’s _all_ a nature preserve these days. We’re planting forests on top of the cities and gardens on the moon. I think, after all this time, we’re finally figuring it out.”

Aurora shivered as a cold breeze brushed the hair away from the back of her neck, but she shook off the sudden chill and took hold of her granddaughter’s hand. “That’s wonderful news. Sabrina must be growing up in a beautiful world.”

“That she is.”

As another joyous laugh pierced the night, Tris stood with a grin. “C'mon. I know you’re not going to miss saying goodnight.”

Aurora smiled. She wasn’t sure she’d ever catch up to the strange ways language and technology had changed in her absence, but the joy of children was unaffected by the passage of years.

“Grandma 'Rora!” Sabrina screeched happily when Aurora joined Maleficent at the side of the vine-woven nest.

“You don’t look very sleepy, little one,” Aurora said, bending over and tickling Sabrina’s belly as she giggled with far too much energy for this time of night.

“Storytime!” she squeaked, futily batting at Aurora’s hands.

“Haven’t you just had one?”

Sabrina pouted. “I want _your_ story.”

“ _My_ story,” Aurora gasped in mock annoyance. “You heard it only last night!”

Sabrina’s pout grew even more focused and far more adorable.

Maleficent slipped an arm about Aurora’s waist. “I want to hear it, too.” At Aurora’s unamused glance, Maleficent kissed the side of her neck and whispered, “What can I say? It is her favorite, after all, and no one tells it quite like you.”

Aurora sighed. There was no use protesting against these two. “Oh, very well. How does it start again?” she teased the girl in the nest.

In a small, determined voice, Sabrina prompted, “Lewus tell an old story a-new…”

“Ah yes. _Let us tell and old story anew.._.” she echoed. _“And we will see how well you know it. Once upon a time, there were two kingdoms that were the worst of neighbors. So vast was the discord between them, that it was said only a great hero or a terrible villain might bring them together. In one kingdom live folk like you and me.._.”

Maleficent was quiet throughout the tale, tracing her fingertips over the back of Aurora’s neck and shoulders with the familiarity of endless years spent side-by-side. The story spun on, meeting the unnamed princess and her dark faerie as though for the first time, and Aurora’s gentle voice carried the listeners back through the ages to another era in the Moors. Her words galloped to Stefan’s castle and wandered a world where the greatest dangers were found at the heart of an iron fortress, then carried them safely out the other side and into the skies beyond.

_“…So you see, the story is not quite as you were told, and I should know, for I was the one they called 'Sleeping Beauty.’ In the end, my kingdom was united not by a hero or a villain, as legend had predicted, but by one who was both hero, and villain.”_ Turning her head, she shared a loving smile with the faerie at her side as she offered, “ _And her name wasMaleficent.”_

Sabrina had heard the story oh so many times before, but as she always had, she giggled and exclaimed, “But that’s you, _Avia!”_

“That it is,” Maleficent answered in her most serious tone as she reached over to tickle the precious girl. Even as she squirmed and squealed with laughter, Maleficent added, “And you know very well Grandma Aurora used to be a princess. But I do believe that’s enough dragons and adventure for one night… off to bed with you!”

No amount of pleading eyes and exclamations of “but _mom_ ” would convince Tris or her grandmothers to let her stay up any longer, and there was a look in Aurora’s eye that had Maleficent drawing them away after only a hurried goodnight to their guests.

“Is everything alright?” Maleficent asked.

Aurora glanced back to where Tris had tucked her daughter into the nest. “I… I dreamed of her last night,” Aurora murmured as she followed Maleficent further from their grandchildren.

“Who, Sabrina?”

“No. The Moors.”

Maleficent’s step faltered and she braced her hand against the nearest tree. “Did you really?”

“Yes,” Aurora replied. “I was afraid, at first. She was just as you described, and I felt… I felt like a little human girl again. But she didn’t speak. She just _looked_ at me. She saw me, and I sensed that she… she approved.” Aurora reached out and rested a hand against her dark faerie’s shoulder. “We’ve done so much.”

Maleficent nodded. “That we have, Beastie,” she replied, voice rumbling from deep in her chest. “That we have.”

“You know, then.”

“I do.”

“Tris told me how the world has changed. They have finally grown mindful and perhaps… perhaps there is no more need of a Protector.”

“Perhaps so,” whispered the dark silhouette.

“Our time is nearly up.”

“Yes.”

The stood in silence beneath the trees, the wind and moonlight caressing the timeless mistresses of the Moors with the same reverent joy it had for so many centuries past.

“Fly with me?” Aurora asked.

“Of course.”

They rose together through the trees, watching the Moors fall away below them as the stars beckoned above. On a night as cloudless as this, they could easily see to the nearest city, spires of silvery steel and smooth, dark glass clawing their way towards the heavens. Once, such a sight would have made Aurora shudder with rage at the audacity of human greed, but now, lit with thousands of tiny lights, the city appeared as little more than a fractured reflection of the starry sky above, and Aurora could feel that the earth upon which it had been built was beginning to… forgive.

Aurora drew Maleficent close and kissed her, folding her wings and letting her lover hold them aloft. They hovered together above the headwinds as they had so many times before, a dusting of magic flickering between their fingertips, but then Maleficent folded her wings, and let them fall.

The forest was rushing up to meet them, faerie lights a twinkling blur amid the branches, but as Aurora reveled in the dive, the lights seemed to draw together, blurring into something golden and glowing, as though the sun had decided to rise in the heart Moors instead of on the horizon. As Aurora spread her wings to slow her fall, she caught sight a figure in the center of all that brilliant light, a figure sprouting hundreds of roots anchoring her to the earth, but with the breast and hands and arms of a woman, reaching out to welcome them home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The End.


End file.
